Monday, December 28, 2009

What is believed to be the oldest depiction of Anaphoria by a foreigner arrived yesterday from Japan accompanied by the interim ambassador R. Tomasula. Carbon dating places it at over 3500 years old and in pristine condition for a woodcut of this age. There has been much speculation about the arc between Anaphoria's two highest peaks as it coincides with many myths of this time as a connection that existed between two famous holy men who while never meeting seemed to provide the people with almost instantaneous dual proclamations.It was known as the time of the great thread or bridge depending on which peak one is able to trace as the source of the story. Much to do as also been made about the actual curve itself resembling the exact proportions of some of Japan's famous bridges.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

http://kristiner.com/blog/category/compositions/It is not very often that one gets to get a good look at those whose work lie within the boundaries of composition and improvisation. Kris seamlessly combines both. I have always gained both musically and conceptually from the way Kris puts things- down on a page and also how he threats it. Especially check out Ele(jg)y and Recourse to Unison. At least!

Monday, December 7, 2009

Perhaps it is odd to repeat this review but i found it quite accurate which is rare and welcomed. He missed the instruments but that is minor as he quite understood what was going on in the music. http://www.wonderfulwoodenreasons.co.uk/" Anaphoria - Footpaths and Trade Routes(ini.itu #0902)LPKraig Grady has been making his beautifully rotund music for quite a while and it shows. The struck bell (or prayer bowl) like ringing tones upon which his music is established are an erratically gentle fall of sound, unpredictable and incandescent. It's form is reminiscent of John Cage's Music for Prepared Piano but of a more elegant and stately nature.Grady has previously recorded for ensembles but the three pieces here are two solo and one edited amalgam. All are delicately poised with shifts in tension given sparingly as the music waxes and wanes. There is a moonlit quality that is hugely immersive and compulsive. The music has a pull and a call based on it's refusal to settle into one particular shape and as such I've found yourself losing hours of time as I relentlessly flip the album over replaying each side in turn.( www.iniitu.net )"

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Thanks to Mike Cooper for putting this up who work can be found linked to this video. A very early show of Chris Abrahams and I and early in the set. Perhaps turn down the volume a bit if it distorts. It is not easy to record such thing off the cuff. It has evolved quite a bit since here and even the instruments have changed color:)

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Anyone who has crossed paths with Erv Wilson will sooner or later will be given a copy of Meru Prastara. So when looking at South Indian meters and stumbling across the term above, I had to take notice. In South India they have a method to figure out all the combinations and permutations, but they do so in a very specific order which when listed in a row one can easily fail to see the pattern. In these two diagrams the subdivisions of 6 and 7 are arranged in a way that i think makes the pattern method clearer.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

It has taking me a while to figure this out. The answer finally came when I was working on another problem. My brain is just not that linear.

Some time back while looking at Takemitsu’s application of Cage’s square root idea to Pitch, I stumbled upon its relationship to certain geometric structures of Erv Wilson. Pitch or duration doesn’t matter in that the structure is the same. I posted this to the Silence list that I was on at the time. I repeat the jest of that below.

This is the simplest example using only 4 durations. This gives us a good visual representation as to what happens with more complex examples. Here is the resulting square using A B C D to be what ever you want.

One has only to replace the number by the letters.What interests me though is the second diagram on this page.Which shows a possible variation of Cage’s square root idea in reverse with each successive element having the reverse relationship above. To make this square, one uses the complementary elements not included in the original. This is what i had missed despite being right there in front of me.

BCD CD BD BC

DC ACD AD AC

DB DA ABD AB

BC CA BA ABC

It is interesting to observe where the two intersect which he does on the next page.

More often than not such a form is used with more elements. With 6 elements [here using the first 6 odd numbers] we can see below what happens as a like wise inter structure and its complements.

The thing about the set made by the intersection forms a cycle and makes it easy to proceed to the next element in a smooth fashion. same with the other ones i mention later. There is no reason at this point no to consider the combinations of 3 out of 6 and if we look at those points where it interests with it complement we get the Eikosany. One of Erv’s Favorite structures. Which you can find it the article linked above.

I had a dream two nights ago where i had my Meru bars in a pentagram which i post next. Perhaps my mind is more linear than i thought.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

It is often easier to talk about someone else’s work than one‘s own. Here I can do a bit of both. Rod Poole and I ended up sharing an interest in microtonality that moved from my introducing him to the field to him as a friendship as a shared partner of similar concerns, questions, and often difficulties. We hadn’t known each other very long when I lent him a 12-tone guitar tuned to my centaur tuning (pictured in red). It was this tuning that became his point of departure, which is illustrated in this picture.

Later Rod shared living in the house with Erv Wilson. Something I had also done twice. It has to be one of the most highly concentrated learning environments one can find one self in. I provided both the knowledge and tools he needed to find what suited him to create his own palette. This is one of the great gifts of working with a teacher like Erv Wilson.

The process I find interesting mainly in that it has a contour that resembles my own, possibly it is universal. Rarely does anyone build directly on previous paths. Often one backs up to some point first and venture in a different direction.

In our case we both worked with larger number of tones and found our self pulling back to less. Rod in turn took what he would always tell me as ‘the best 7 limit 12 scale for the guitar, period’, (something he was more sure of than me) but dropped all the 5 limit intervals. [These are the hollowed red dots in the diagram]. La Monte’s tuning brought his attention to the possibility of dropping 5s for higher limit possibilities. He preferred to add 11 and 13 over 7s though. He was not one to waste time on over explored territory. Originally he added a 17 and a 19 harmonic, I think to try them out. He felt though how the instrument felt under his hand was a prime concern, and these added more problems than he gained for musically). His tuning is the solid red and black notes together. He had 19 tones originally after toying with 22 I believe, but pulled back to 17. All after taking my 12 and keeping only 8 of 3 and 7 limit intervals. I myself ventured out to 31 tones before pulling back to 22.

Those who know tuning might say is quite a distance from where Rod started to where he ended but he preserved the consistencies in the tuning. When I saw his notes, I smiled recognizing him being a student of Erv, there is no doubt of this.

There is more though. His frets ran straight across and he did much to explore different open strings tunings, as this is something he saw as the guitars strong point. Besides tetrachords he liked finding those close intervals such overlapping of tunings can provide. Likewise the harmonic spacings natural to the guitar molded by such overlaps. We have nothing on what he did with open string tuning in detail for his own playing outside the bowed guitar work. I know that he would tune strings 7 limit intervals away from personal statements he made.What other push and pulls happened on this level before and after we might never know.

Both are music are scale based. Presently I pulled back to a 12 tone tuning that pushes the nature of what a scale of this number can be can be and remain so. This tuning, a Meta-Slendro based on Wilson’s, I have tune out to 22 on a different instrument, but I find that it loses something by having this many tones. For contrast I have another 9 tone ( which I had taken out to 16 tones) that uses many of the intervals that I the other lacks. It kind of plays ‘Pelog’ to my Slendro. Less tones need be no less adventuresome. One can explore all the ways a particular pitch can interact with all the others. While there are those venturing forth by just simple harmonic relations, letting harmony lead the way, melody and scale can also lead . In this situation harmony can develops more on the lines of ‘pandiatonic thinking’. By this, the free use of tones within a scale as opposed to the free scale developed out of harmony. One need not have to go back the way one came, there is no problem jumping from one point to the next. These were also concerns of Rod’s.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

The people of Anaphoria are pleased that both some of their oldest and newest music appears on this first piece of vinyl made available in a limited edition from ini.itu We are grateful for their extreme effort and care in making this possible. Two excerpts available here. Complete press release available from this page.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Today I wish one could break out of categories. What opens a door on inception quickly becomes cemented into a partisan camp. Kandinsky was quite articulate at how the fertilizing ray transforms into the obstructing hand. The period in which this happens has quickened. An open door quickly locks those in it rooms into a state on what they will not venture beyond or worthy of being open to. Sound exist in space only till it ends when it is no longer present in one, yet our lingering perception of it fills the total space dimension we are taking in at that moment. Hence it becomes a ‘totality’ and universal. It fades but fades into everything as an inseparable quality now dormant but eternal. It is this space/non-space I want to deal with directly beyond the prisons of style and categories.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

After Rod Poole's passing, I assembled a concert of shorten selections of some of Rods pieces from his works for three bowed guitars. I felt it was better to represent his variety on the subject and inspire maybe others to perform them as well as to allow people to hear how differently they were. Something the months in between his performances did not us able to do. In his notes we could find only 4 versions of which we realized three. It was quite enlightening what he had done. Not only were none of the guitars tuned the same way in a single composition, instead much care was directed to the spacing of chords and doublings for resonance in what must have required much experimentation on his part. Rod did not tune to any reference pitch but worked with the sound and timbre of his guitar to start building a piece yet one version did require a capo around where the sharp 4 would be on an open string. While one might acknowledge that this began where he could get the intervals he wanted but also i imagine he also wanted to investigate that shorter string timbres as well as the difference the strings would react under the string tension. Each of these versions represented a different way of approaching the limitation of a single chord. Each of the four versions he left couldn’t be more different in construction; the utilization of harmonics 13-14-17, an unusual Tetrachord, a 7-tone scale, or a 5-tone scale taken predominantly from the subharmonic series. On Sept 12 in Los Angeles SASSAS will be presenting a tribute to Rod taking these as it foundation. David Beardsley is also planning on presenting one in the future. I myself would like to bring this work to Australia but i also hope to write my own at some point in tribute to him and allowing the idea to continue to grow which is what Rod's approach was all about.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Cheb Zahouani has always been one of my favorite Rai Artist. I have always loved the scales as well as the Synth sounds which in most other context just wouldn't work. Here they do. I am amazed how it doesn't bother me that it takes over two and a half minutes for him to even start the song.

Friday, July 24, 2009

AM King Joe and i want to know if you can assist me to make an order for scales. I would need to know the types you have in stock,let me know the prices and also the types of credit cards you do accept for payment,i also don't need shipping cost because i will be coming to your shop for pickup or recommend a shipping company for the pickup when the scales are ready. Please Advise ASAP So that the project of the scales will be fast.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Here is a safe haven to discuss the practice without having to justify itself. Something it seems it has to spend too much time doing. It is the music that matters and even though I can come up with many advantages of JI over other systems, i don't feel like putting any more energy into that. It gives us useful and rewarding possibilities, what more can one ask for. It is small group but the quality of those involved is high and most of all positive. It is more than open to those who are just getting their feet wet or want to hear what people are doing with it.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

A short little composition for Koto. The scale is derived from Meta-Mavila. This scale was inspired by the Chopi tuning in the village of this name. The mode chosen was which most resembled a Japanese scale so we might have added some S.E. African reference in the title too. It is dedicated to my lovely wife, Terumi Narushima who supplied the photo of her Koto

Sunday, June 28, 2009

There is an excerpt of a piece now up in Newcastle, NSW, Australia. for headphone only listening on this page. It takes my Meta Slendro splitting into two scales that produce beats only in the brain as the wave never touch. It starts unbelievably soft but does get louder. More so beyond the limit of the excerpt.More later!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Is anyone surprised that it would be Ned Kelly? Here he is, almost Kachina like, an outsider who preserves it at all cost. For the last 10 years I have been making my own puppets for the Shadow Theatre of Anaphoria. My first was a fish. Almost all the human ones I have made have been based on traditional models in a desire to fully understand what goes on in every detail before undertaking the task myself. Even here choices have been made. Often I will survey as many variants of a puppet I could find, selecting what spoke to me most and what harmonized together. Traditional puppets are multilayered enigmas carrying an extensive history with past remnants hidden and informing the present ones. Often a stylistic code is used throughout all of them. They can consider the nature of flame, or the need to represent humans and gods where such images are not allowed. It does not say I haven’t kept ones eyes on more modern designs. Often one finds two common ones, the oversimplified puppets or realistic ones. These counterparts have often failed to hold me. What was missing? The director Eugenio Barba talks about how even a still actor on stage has to remain energized in their posture. In the case of a puppet this is even more necessary as one cannot rely on gesture or motion as easily. The puppet has to be ready and attentive at every moment. It is a new concern for puppet design and opens the door to furthering this art is general. So this puppet was a result of this direction.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

At the Sydney Con on Saturday they has an entire day of Stockhausen's music. Stop. Ylem. Hymnen. The 2nd act for Tuesday- Day of light. Ensemble Offspring doing a wonderful version of 'Set Sail for the Sun' as well as shimmering arrangements of his 12 pieces for the Zodiac. I was full by the time we left.As we were traveling up from Wollongong we decided we would catch the entire 11 hours. So we arrived at 1 to hear what was supposedly was going to be a performance of some of the schools jazz musicians jamming on his work. We entered as Warren Summers was talking to the director of the festival as they had not shown up. I mentioned that i had played much of the '7 days' and Warren had also expressed an interest in doing something to him. So with an audience waiting he said. "Well go down there and play". So along with Terumi Narushima we did so without any discussion at all besides playing 6 hand piano as all that was available. I ventured out first but for the longest time no one joined. Finally Terumi joined in on the upper part of the keyboard and still some time later Warren came in with prerecorded sound that he had of his just intonation piano music. Warren I thought was a processing of what we were playing which gives you an idea of how well it fit. Internally i followed both the instructions for INTENSITY and COMMUNION plus the plus and minus signs from what i could remember of SPIRAL. We played for 50 minutes which seem less to me. A few people came up wanted to see the score. It was highly successful and was honored to 'channel' the spirit of Karlheinz in with Warren Summers and Terumi Narushima.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Quote from Artaud's 'The Theater and Its Double' (p.95 of my Evergreen book edition)

"MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: They will be treated as objects and as a part of the set. Also, the need to act directly and profoundly upon the sensibility, through the organs invites research, from the point of view of sound, into qualities which present-day musical instruments do not possess and which require the revival of ancient and forgotten instruments or the invention of new ones. Research is also required , apart from music, into instruments and appliances which, based on special combinations or new alloys of metal, can attain a new range and compass, producing sounds or noises that are unbearably piercing."

Elsewhere Artaud talks about them being of human size and dimensions. Partch must have found himself if pretty full agreement with this, except for the concentration on metal. Still many of his percussive instruments were more than capable of being piercing. If would have been interesting if the theater community would have picked up on his work before the music one. Probably the development would have been of little difference. In fact his work still exist as theater secondly even though he was on the forefront of those who took Artaud and ran with it. He still deserve more notice from this direction.

Monday, May 18, 2009

I really have never understood movements especially from the inside out. From the outside, they can be greatly entertaining. Not so much if one has to or feels forced to participate to be legitimate. For the growth of an art, the last thing that is needed is everyone investigating the same idea, and even more so for so long. Imagine all the poets in the world congregated at the same bluff and each writing poem after poem about the landscape. Sure a few would bring something unique. It does seem though a bad idea considering all the other bluffs in the world that are being ignored because of this. More often the bluff seems arbitrary if not shallow and/or a trivial choice. We find little out about a forest by everyone taking the same path in. How many pictures on flicker are needed from the same spot. Such situations resemble prisons. It is not a matter of individual ego. It is just more expedient to have many people investigating many different branches that the present has unveiled. Some will naturally find themselves drawn to some like areas but not everyone in a niche and/or its pseudo-opposite. The more paths taken seems the best way for a whole art to grow wider, if not also upward.

Friday, May 8, 2009

More meanings of the 108 secret Anaphorian signs that cannot be shown62. The path that is apparent only after much time and reflection.63. When a crystalline formation informs an array of thoughts 64. That prophesy attained through grasping the waves of balance between opposites. 65. What we call and identify as personal guides66. What is separated to be reconfigured into a better bond67. The most individual trait that is most useful to others.68. The study of the sparks that lead to an awaking from an oppressing hypnosis. 69. A relentless force set upon working on that which has been spoiled. 70. The pleasing glimmer at the end of a task.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

The man replied,”Things as they are, Are changed upon the blue guitar.”-Wallace Stevens

I have a small blank black book where I have kept a record of practically every I Ching hexagram I have thrown since 1977. Perhaps I am somehow deceiving myself, but every time I have thrown it, it seems to make uncanny sense. More than once when it seemed to stray, I have found I tabulated it wrong. It is more than the traditional method too. I use a variety of multi-sided dice that I pick and choose from, depending on the subject. The configuration attempted to coincide with the probability found in the yarrow stick method. Why did I pick dice? It seemed to fit my (post) western concept of chance. Las Vegas. A place I loathe. but where the power of chance is worshipped. Funny thing though when I have used a computer to throw the I Ching ithey NEVER seem to fit. One wonders whether the programs are all defective or ‘limited’ in someway or there is more influence one puts into the results than one realizes when going the corporeal route. Perhaps my ‘attitude’. Tarot, which I have less experience with, my experience has been pretty much the same. I suspect some aspect of randomness is intangable. Musically I have used random methods primarily when I was investigating the nature of inversions of chords. To sustain a chord on some of my faster decay instruments I would ‘randomize’ the members of the chord, learning that it worked better to play the extremes less often with the middle more. I am sure that what I do is less than what a mathematical producing might give me, yet musically the result fits as good or better. But there is an interesting symbiotic relation going on here that I think could and should be explored more. What I am doing in these instances is only because of what I have heard machines or methods do. One could say I am informed by these random generators. As there are different random processes, it seems that they each could be used as an exposure to activate similar activity within a performers ourselves. To some extent I am sure this has already happen. One wonders if a Feldman could have happen without the input of his friends exploring various random applications musically and also visually. Intuition relies on what it is presented with. It seem the process could go back and forth. It partially leads me out of a dilemma I was having.“ What is the difference between a piece that uses a random method and one that says it is, but doesn’t”. One could put all types of other things to replace random to be fair, but I think I made enough problems with others asking these types of questions. There is still the aspect of partisan attitude associated with method and process that becomes meaningless if one cannot tell one realization from another. We don’t need such emperor clothes, the phenomenon is or should be enoughWe can see that the process can be much more interactive with other processes in a deeper sense than when one thing literally mirrors another. Our tools can inform us and in turn we can inform them.

Original footage of the 'first contact' between Papuan highlanders and Australian gold prospectors in the 1930's, together with reflections from surviving participants on their swift introduction to Western colonialism. Ripped from the DVD "Indigenous Resistance in New Guinea" made by Solidarity South Pacific: www.eco-action.org/ssp - respect!«

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Not all instruments are equal in their flexibility. Compare what can do with a piano and finger cymbals. I have a wonderful recording of a solo of the latter by Madjid Khaladj. Here on Tombak

Human beings will always be able to make music out of just about anything. The relationship with instruments and people works both ways -each dictates what the other will do. Often time a defective one will result in an artist exploring just that defect. Keith Jarretts busted electric piano key on Miles LIVE/EVIL became the whole focus of the song as Jarrett first circles around it then drones on it. I have seen Chris Abrahams do the similar things on a “bad’ piano with finding some unique chord/timbre only available there at that moment. Still such an instrument offers much choice in variation in sound.While it is wonderful to see so many new instruments one would hope we can recognize the ones that offer more than one sound or timbre, one that allow the artist somewhere to go and discover beyond the immediate. It needn’t be complex as even set of bowls tuned by water gets one a broad range of expression. Often we might see an individual who no longer uses an instrument in ANY conventional way and I remember Jim French questioning why they just make an instrument that does that to start with and then venture from there. It is a good question. What we need are instruments we can continue to explore on, not hem us in to a sound or two. Conventional ones have their own history and shouldn't be avoided. In fact how far can we get beyond variations of these great models?

Friday, April 17, 2009

It seems that in any form of communal music, scale and/or scales offer more advantages than disadvantages. I was reminded of this at the first rehearsal of a shadow play. Terumi responded how forgiving the scale on the instruments was, as if one could not hit a ‘wrong note’ yet assisted with what one wanted to do. Such was the hopeful goal when picking it years ago for use with this medium. It had to have a range of expression. So the overused generic harmonic series would not work. ( I don't think i could stand another piece on the harmonic series, especially on C) One possibility is scale where all intervals are basically the same dissonant/consonant factor to each other. Otherwise one is working with tendencies require special handling either to resolve or avoid resolution. This allows any note to be used with any other and harmony often resulting from a combination of melodic impulses and/or doubling. Such scales are common to Africa and Indonesia, places where communal music is might be the most developed. Perhaps a good pathway is not to go outside of the great knowledge contained within these musics, but to proceed deeper within how it is put together. On the other hand if this is where we are going, the atomization of ‘sounds for themselves’ seem the foreign to where we want to get to, or is offering little in itself out of hand. Another aspect of scale is the ‘orientation’ it provides. While this can be done by other parameters, A scale can provide an already mapping of terrain that is 'not' being included in what is being heard at the moment. We needn’t go back to 5 and 7 tone scales even though that is an area I don’t think has been exhausted. Even Coltrane returned to such material on more than one occasion. One can take scale also as a point of departure that can be expanded upon yet remain as dynamic. One more aspect of scale though is in can creating an environmental ambiance by it very nature of its materials. By its own internal interaction with itself certain scales will carry further than others in distance. Others can be compared with placing of stones is a brook. One can create patterns of waves that are a delight to the eye. The same can be done with sound waves. [ one can add one more and it all falls apart into turbulence. One reason why I shy from combine tunings, especially 12 ET with my own. It undermines the very nature of my tuning to interact with the environment. While I do think it is possible to combine certain scales (not all) , we know too little about this at this time, the physics is already highly complex with even singular tunings and we are far from exhausting those possibilities.]

To depend on intent or even conception appears problematic in that one must assume the transition from a mesocosm, say an intermediary realm of visionary imagination from which the conception appears, into the corporeal is possible without any transformation. The implication is then that they are completely alike in syntax for this to be possible. I find this doubtful even if we find them inseparable. Change occurs and these type of changes also deserve reflection. Stockhausen, who to many represent the non reflective creative spirit run loose appears to not be so. If one reads his comments about his 'from the 7 days' works, one observes that he did not shy away from reflecting that the 'results' were often different than the 'intent' of the piece. In fact he quite celebrating what he in turn learned by how these ideas manifested. Concept requires an understanding of what happens when it is enacted. Otherwise we risk degenerating into an idealistic dictatorship of 'spirit over matter' not far from the realm of religion.

The relationship between concept and realization seems best when a marriage of the two. Each adding to the mix and mutually reflecting upon their own interaction. Hence one small step toward an 'inner commune'

Sunday, April 5, 2009

I could have embedded all these but i thought it best just to provide a link to the source. A wonderful documentary on Olson that deserves more attention.http://www.polisisthis.com/watch-now.htmlWhile much has been said about his relation and influence on musical improvisation. I think his work has implication for Intuitive music in general. Not to mention looking at the possibilities of musical passages as being related by their 'energy' as opposed to ' technical systems' that often fail to be comprehensible. It surely leads us back to a phenomenological experience of it.

Monday, March 30, 2009

While I am sure both would object, there are some striking similarities between the first two above. Both of their visions are advancements in holism. Both have been labeled incorrectly “Utopian”, for neither present answers, only a process that at most seems to be a ‘first step’ that then require reflection before proceeding. Space is both their medium of utmost importance being the medium for social change.

Both place much importance of desirability over objectivity that is a marked differentiation to the work of Duchamp and Cage. These latter individuals can be looked upon as those who expanded the concept of “framing” and how that affects and defines their medium. This framing is so powerful, they illustrated that anarchy (in the form of randomness) could indeed be objectively encompassed within it . At the time, there were those who objected to this anarchy and randomness being more a symptom of capitalism; its nature of having no goal and it lack of taking responsibility for the course it takes. This global economic meltdown might for us cause us to reflect on the process of the economic anarchy that has caused it. It is too shaky of ground to come to a conclusion on this alone.

Not only Beuys or Soleri, but many artists of which Harry Partch would quite rightfully fit are/were more concerned with ‘working on what had been spoiled”. There is a recognition that the unsorted product of an underdeveloped or damaged might not be automatically of artistic worth. Intuition, real or simulated, likewise cannot be any guarantee and this is plausibly a more realistic criticism.

Instead a space for the myriad of forces that exist within the individual, what James Hillman refers to as the ‘Inner Commune’, is the space Beuys and Soleri, and Partch wish to celebrate and develop toward its fullness. All this work about space, and in the end, it is all directed toward inward.

I could post another 20 but i thought i would go with maybe exceptional, maybe more overlooked representations.

Even outside the message, note the angular background line in the ensemble of this tune. It is quite unusual how it comes in and disappears thoughout. I can't think of another example like it.

Now where does one hear counterpoint like this in the first tune. As an aside my Stepfather was the head scenic artist on this show.

Scott Walker who started in the 60's is still going. He is probably as close as we are going to get to Schubert as a song writer we might see in our life time. This songs takes excepts from the trials of Eichmann mixed with Henry the VIII Queen Anne.

you can't embed the following. Yes Nancy Sinatra! with Lee Hazelwood. Now if one wanted to write a 16th century mass on a popular tune. This one would be my first choice. The song always struck me as about man's relationship to nature as well as a warning not to meddle with it too much either.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb-SVPJM4L4

The concert includes another premiere: Flirt by Bryron Au Yong as well as works by Lois Vierk, David Lang, George Crumb and John Cage. Quite a line upI am immensely grateful to Tiffany Lin for making this opportunity available to me. The tuning has to be one of the more conservative i have used but that is no reflection on it beauty. It is a temperament invented by George Secor which works well for much 12 tone Equal temperament music. It differs than most temperaments in that it combines the recurrent sequence idea of Erv Wilson's Meta-meantone with attempting to preserve the idea of triads being equal beating. If one had to write for 12 Tone instruments but wanted a more pleasing tool to do so, this is a strong candidate. I tend to think that it might have persauded Lou Harrison to give it a try along his use of Werk. 3. But the proof is in the pudding and recommend trying it yourself. Here is the tuning called Secor 2 as expressed in deviation for 12 ET. It is spelled out so that everything is lower to not scare those afraid to tune up. Ideally one would keep A at A=440. if you try it out let me know how it works for you.Secor 2C 0.0C# -14.1D -5.9D# -7.1E -10.7F - 0.1F# -14.4G -2.9G# -9.9A -8.3A# -2.1B -13.6

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Ten Trenches

Digging for the Past, Unveiling the Future

A partnership between Bundanon Trust, University of Wollongong and Macquarie UniversityFunded by Arts NSW

Ten Trenches investigates the impact of sea-level rise on the Shoalhaven River in NSW. Auger holes and slot trenches reveal the flood behaviours of the river from up to 8,000 years ago – a period when the sea was about a metre higher than present – a level which is predicted to reoccur within the next 100 years.

Estuaries of the past; Centuries of dirt; We dive knife-in-mouth through tonnes of earth

A collaboration between a site-based artists and a river scientist: two brothers Michael and Tim Cohen. Ten Trenches is part of Bundanon Trust’s SITEWORKS project; a three year conversation between artists, scientists, historians, archaeologists and local people exploring the Bundanon site.

UPDATE

By Day Two the crew of Ten Trenches were already 27 metres down, drilling through 15 metres of beautiful soft river sand to reach a particular time period known as Pleistocene, which dates from 10,000 years and older. The crew have discovered traces of an extinct species of tree.

On Day Three the seven-tonne excavator arrived and the digging of the slot trenches begun. To date, four trenches have been dug, positioned throughout the paddocks at Bundanon.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

TD: Phil loved music. His first job was as a clerk in a record store (Art Music). He loved classical music first, but in the 1960s he discovered rock and roll. At one time he played a triangle in an ensemble put together by the avant-garde composer Harry Partch.

Monday, February 2, 2009

The whales have been known to keep themselves propped up vertically out of the water for minutes. Everyone has seen them at one time or another. Even above on the cliffs. They are so large and their shape, their color cannot help but stand out from the waves. No one is quite sure how they do it. Figure it is some type of trick they have learned over time. Someone thought maybe they use the sunlight to heal themselves from the germs that cannot help to succumb to it. And their songs are remarkably different from other places although the locals find nothing unusual in it. They have their horns they play back and forth with them from their boats. This has been going on for so long one can no longer tell one from the other. Or who learned from whom or how much from each other. In the water is the best place to listen, can you tell?

"I couldn't sleep," said Yuko Visma, who lives 50 metersfrom the plant. "I didn't want to go outside. I thought the plant wasbeing raided. That, or they'd started work on a new production line. Thenoise."

Police were called to the scene by Pachinko employees. A spokesman saidinvestigators had ruled out robbery and confirmed none of the factoryworkers were suspects.

Added to police evidence was a tape found outside the plant. Therecording, made the following day, documents sounds of a spontaneousmourning punctuated with the sounds of smaller machinery being turned onand let run at times. It is believed the tape is of the formeremployees.

Having discovered the tape, authorities stopped the removal of themachinery off the island. The company was under injunction for thebackpay of wages dating back to last year.

Police say Pachinko's owners chose to abandon the machinery. It hassince been returned to the factory where workers have reassembled it andare running it themselves.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

In the past at our North American Embassy, or now at our Austronesian outpost, visitors have been surprised that our recording archives consist of far more ‘world music’ than contemporary western music. Likewise when we were sponsoring the radio show ‘The Wandering Medicine Show’ on KXLU for 8 years, many were surprised or offended I didn’t play the latter music (or their own). Our own experiences playing within the LA punk scene infused a great appreciation of music that comes about spontaneously as opposed to being manufactured. Let it be known that it was the only option available to perform my music live, especially in front of an audience that did not need to be ‘educated’ in it to appreciate it. 70% of that music done at that time might not even fit with present days definitions of “punk” but that spirit informed it. It had less influence from the outside than one might conceive and should be seen as one of the indigenous music movements that occurred in LA, this one in the late 70’s up to the mid 80s. The important thing was it nature of it as a ‘spontaneous’ movement, a ‘free improvisation of a genre’ on a truly large scale. Such things happened and continue to happen in other places and times. Such spirits still continue to rumble under out feet often when we least expect it and in the most likely locales. The true history of music lies in the madness of such spontaneous movements. When we think of traditional music we have finally gotten to a point we recognize that it is not a child that has been kept in a suspended animation without growing and changing. The amount and frequencies of these changes has come in every form one can possibly imagine. Each tradition its own history. What can be defined as being a traditional music though is in it being informed by its past and/or by the artifacts existing in the present of the culture. In this sense, experimental music is another traditional music, modern traditional or traditional modern (or post-). If viewed this way, it is the largest ethnic collection represented in our collection. One might argue that it is the most varied but I would caution this might be from our cultural perception/prejudges. Jung pointed out that the lack of perceived differentiation is a sign of something being unconscious. It does appear to myself that the west have a tradition of ‘schisms’, Which seem to have increased to more and more rapid succession. With these often it is history itself that is often repressed. The repressed on the other hand often institutionalized omits what it cannot “explain” historically or possibly technologically. Schisms regardless “cut off’ information, from past and future, and even from the near and far. Never before have we had such a proliferations of genre labels that approach a higher proportion to the number of actual practitioners. Already we find that an artist might have to use 7 genres to define what they do. The problem is what is left out, what walls are being constructed in the culture. It is a form of segregation and designates what one cannot do. The result often is a constant reinvention without much addition. While we may recognize that the spirit is different possibly this is a cultures’ way of assimilating the multiple meanings of actions. A time of reflection as opposed to growth. One should expect such periods but not by such means. It becomes a cycle one cannot escape As much as one culture might say that anything is now possible, I am amused by just exactly what they do not and can not reach found somehow. That culture has its inclinations no less restricted than many of the others. The concept of “evolution” is a dangerous one in regard to music, as if everyone will do what the west will or has done. A real understanding points how a music will develop along the lines that it can, but does do so regardless of the limited means. Someone paraphrased something I said that music is something that does

What all traditional musics offer is the result of a ‘collective cultural imagination’. It is for this a focus on all the various forms human imagination has fruitfulness

Saturday, January 17, 2009

The rejection of anything results usually of what Jung might refer to as an enantiodromia. Something that turns into its opposite.

I will state that the movement that started off rejecting ‘ entertainment’ now might be relying on it. Not that I have any objection to entertainment.

Entertainment has been given a bad rap. Frankly if it wasn’t entertaining, I wouldn’t bother listening to it, especially twice, and there is much there is really is no reason to bother. It is the lack of superficiality that makes something entertaining to myself and will propose also to others. Dylan understood this aspect and claimed he was nothing but an entertainer. All the great filmmakers have no problem being entertaining.

There is something puritanical by basing ones direction by what one is not going to do. Whether beats, melodies, tones, chords scales, texture. humor, tonality, comprehension. It is absurd to pretend that good music hasn’t been done using these. What is interesting musically is what one does. There is already a history before that already left all the above out. Those who insist on the process of elimination, in the end don’t seem to like music at all. There are these individuals too it must be acknowledged. Psychologically stems from the fear emotions solicit as just something one cannot control. The escape is then toward scientific materialism. Safe but quickly exhausting of sustained interest.

It seems if one is going to use an instrument completely outside the scope of its historical use. Then there is absolutely no reason to us it at all. One then has the opportunity to invent instruments that make those sounds. Otherwise one is resorting to acrobatics which I have always found one of the lower forms of entertainment. Cleverness is one of the easiest things to degenerate into surface.

Too much attention is placed to fulfilling a genre, modern. This is a form of partisanism and outside the surface is conservative in defer all to a group mind. Let us remind our selves of Popper’s observation that the group ego has done more harm than the individual one. There are those who refuse to step outside it boundaries to be themselves. The world has changed tremendously in the last 40 years. How is it the spirit behind it can remain the same.

Music is filled with some wonderful craftsmen who have accomplished much without ever having once to think or experience sound like an artist.

Those that pride themselves on not having to no longer rely on the ear might resemble what Aliester Crowley referred to as a ‘blind person trying to gain sight by becoming blind drunk’.

That postmodern dictum = a work is to be a comment on the field itself is a formula of works to have no interest outside of practitioners. Hence a form of segregation instituted by the very language it attempts to describe.

Friday, January 16, 2009

It is funny to have ones first poem read out loud by another. But this is what is happening as Mark So includes one of my experiments with goggling phrases in a composition of his. I don't know if this also qualify as 'lyrics' but i doubt he is singing it. for those in LA it occurs.......

But are we hiding something?How long until you're hiding something?Are Your Documents Hiding Something?Hiding something after it is printed but not beforeWas Shakespeare Hiding Something?

Are you hiding something in the Cabinet?

Did you ever want to hide something from prying eyes, yet were afraid to do so in your homeAre you hiding something about yourself you are ashamed of revealing? Are your neighbors hiding something?What is this? Your Spouse Hiding Something?Is my husband hiding something?Is he hiding something or am I just paranoid ?wait i love you but I feel like you are hiding something from me.YOUR HIDING SOMETHING CAUSE ITS BURNING THROUGH YOUR EYES

Is Obama hiding something from his college days?IS SARAH PALIN HIDING SOMETHINGIs The Government Hiding Something?I imagine they're hiding at least as much as any government on the face of the planet and for similar ...Is the CIA hiding something about 9/11?They're Hiding SomethingOf course they're hiding something.

Are Chemtrails hiding something about our war with Planet X ?the administration is Hiding SomethingI agree - they are hiding something - in the open.Hiding something in plain sight is a variant of the invisibility defense

Something is hiding in my iPhone.

"He Who Yells Loudest is Usually Hiding Something"

Yes, your friend is hiding a lot of things. There’s stuff boiling there that she is trying to ignore.Jessica Simpson is Hiding Something

Hiding from something dangerous, or dangerous things hidden:JOHN AND CINDY McCAIN ARE HIDING SOMETHING FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE BEWARE: these same cockroaches are running and hiding as if someone has switched on the lights.The Snakes are hiding Something!'

The creep is hiding something and we as the PEOPLE of this country demand action. Two-thirds think Bush administration hiding something because he's hiding something and we wanna know.As good as he is at hiding things you would think he could never get caught doing anything, and whatever they do happen to find must only be a miniscule fraction of what is really there

Is John Edwards Hiding Something?I heard that he was hiding the sausage.but Blizzard's hiding something“Blair’s hiding something from us”Could Bill Ford Jr. be Hiding Something?Those statements pretty much scream that he is hiding somethingLack of evidence could mean Iraq's hiding something.

Is the Catholic Church hiding something?If they are truly hiding something, it will eventually come out and we'll be crucified.

Are the Masons hiding something or is this fake?Men who have beards are hiding something!The Organization Is Hiding Something .

I honestly think that Sam is hiding something. Wal-Mart is hiding something and is striking back by hiding other discounts until Thanksgiving day.

The Librarians are hiding something.The Deception one-sheet may be hiding something.No one is that 2-dimensional.

I wish I had something worth hiding.To hide something in multiple contexts, "Something worth hiding," he clarified carefully. "Something to make all the hiding and repressing worth it." The unwilling-unable distinction is like the difference between purposely hiding something from others and unconsciously hiding something from yourselfIf they came up against a barrier, however effective, I would already be guilty of hiding something - which I'm not. There is no reason for someone to lie, unless they are hiding something.I've noticed that hesitation is one of the early signals to me that I'm hiding from something or behind something. "I'm hiding something very, very scary about me. About what I am and who I represent and what I did."I think Peter is hiding something and it has absolutely nothing to do with poker . something's hiding deep inside.

I’m always hiding something. Shit I'm doing it right now.

he had once again thought of hiding something else in the same (unusual) place. a place suitable for hiding something (such as yourself)

Is Burma Hiding Something?If you must hide something there, at least camouflage it. Think about where you would hide something if you were sure someone was coming looking for it, then hide it someplace else. I'm in agreement that hiding something might need to happen before you add itGitmo Terrorists Hiding Weapons in their ...Hiding something in their Quran probably happened about once or twice.Security researchers note that simply hiding something doesn't make it a threat, but they are experts in detecting when someone is deliberately hiding something and are training machines to recognize human emotions. Police must be hiding something under the rug by physically hiding something from someone in our home like food, cigarettes, drugs, and money.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Here are two instruments, the top a continuation of the scale of the lower. Having to replace the stands left at our North American branch offered the opportunity to design a way in which they might work together besides separately by having them at slightly different heights. Still unpainted, it was built with the shipping cases ( and even the screws!) it came with. Possibly wheels will be added. I am quite surprised how it is quite playable still within a good reach in the low register. It satisfied my yearly pattern of working on New Years day on an instrument regardless of the before evenings celebratory experiences. For those interested in such technicalities, the upper instrument carries out my Meta-Slendro scale out another 12 places, beyond the 22 tone point which one would normally stop at. This adds some options as keeping open the possibility of taking it out to 36 places if another like instrument is found. Such thing happens as Wilson's 22 Eikosany which now has the full 36 tones . An instrument began in 1963, there was finished in 2007